Project Summary
Veteran suicide statistics currently report that 20 veterans a day die by their own hand. Interventions are urgently needed to reduce future suicides in this population. However, the protective interventions used must be informed in the context of military culture to be effective in this marginalized population. Our project’s suicide protective methodology is an upstream approach to help veterans’ live healthy and full lives. The project’s Stakeholder-Driven Veterans’ Suicide Protection Advisory Group (VSPAG) is made of up veterans, veterans’ friends and family, service provides, partnership team, and key stakeholders. In Tier III we will leverage our Tier I and Tier II engagement efforts that uncovered core protective interventions used by veterans in the community. Consequently, the vast majority of interventions disclosed by veterans in the community have been tested with unknown and established effect sizes. In Tier III we will develop a veteran-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER) study to compare two veteran-driven interventions that protect veterans from suicide. Throughout the 12-month project our project leads, VSPAG, and academic researchers will participate in engagement activities including face-to-face and virtual meetings to draft a Letter of Intent and a CER proposal that is veteran-driven. In order to achieve this we will also participate in research-oriented webinars, a grant-writing workshop, and a writers’ retreat. Our community engagement project is raising national awareness about suicide protection interventions. We are driven to develop a rigorous proposal suitable for submission to PCORI and other funding sources to support our nation’s heroes.